leaves. In the opening was a core of ruddy light and the living forms of men, but it was only a tiny spot in the immeasurable wilderness.
The schoolmaster and he alone felt their littleness. The autumn night was crisp, and from his seat on a log he held out his fingers to the warm blaze. Now and then a yellow or red leaf caught in the light wind drifted to his feet and he gazed up half in fear at the great encircling wall of blackness. Then he uttered silent thanks that he was with such trusty men as the guide and the shiftless one.
The effect upon Henry was not the same. He had become silent while the others talked, and he half reclined against a tree, looking at the sky that showed a dim and shadowy disk through the opening. But there was nothing of fear in his mind. A delicious sense of peace and satisfaction crept over him. All the voices of the night seemed familiar and good. A lizard slipped through the grass and the eye and ear of Henry alone noticed it; neither the guide nor the shiftless one had seen or heard its passage. He measured the disk of the heavens with his glance and foretold unerringly whether it would be clear or cloudy on the morrow, and when something rustled in the woods, he knew, without looking, that it was a hare frightened by the blaze fleeing from its covert. A tiny brook trickled at the far edge of the fire's rim, and he could tell by the color of the waters through what kind of soil it had come.
Paul sat down near him, and began to talk of home. Henry smiled upon him indulgently; his old relation of protector to the younger boy had grown stronger during this trip; in the forest he was his comrade's superior by far, and Paul willingly admitted it; in such matters he sought no rivalry with his friend.
"I wonder what they are doing way down there?" said Paul, waving his hand toward the southeast. "Just think of it, Henry! they are only one little spot in the wilderness, and we are only another little spot way up here! In all the hundreds of miles between, there may not be another white face!"
"It is likely true, but what of it?" replied Henry. "The bigger the wilderness the more room in it for us to roam in. I would rather have great forests than great towns."
He turned lazily and luxuriously on his side, and, gazing into the red coals, began to see there visions of other forests and vast plains, with himself wandering on among the trees and over the swells. His comrades said nothing more because it was comfortable in their little camp, and the peace of the wilds was over them all. The night was cold, but the circling wall of trees sheltered the opening, and the fire in the center radiated a grateful heat in which they basked. The scholar, Mr. Pennypacker, rested his face upon his hands, and he, too, was dreaming as he stared into the blaze. Paul, his blanket wrapped around him and his head pillowed upon soft boughs, was asleep already. Ross and Sol dozed.
But Henry neither slept nor wished to do so. His gaze shifted from the red coals to the silver disk of the sky. The world seemed to him very beautiful and very intimate. These illimitable expanses of forest conveyed to him no sense of either awe or fear. He was at home. He had become for the time a being of the night, piercing the darkness with the eyes of a wild creature, and hearkening to the familiar voices around him that spoke to him and to him alone. Never was sleep farther from him. The shifting firelight in its flickering play fell upon his face and revealed it in all its clear young boyish strength, the firm neck, the masterful chin, the calm, resolute eyes set wide apart, the lean big-boned fingers, lying motionless across his knees.
Mr. Pennypacker began to nod, then he, too, wrapped himself in his blanket, lay back and soon fell fast asleep; in a few minutes Sol followed him to the land of real dreams, and after a brief interval Ross, too, yielded. Henry alone was awake, drinking deep of the night and its lonely joy.
The silver disk of the sky turned into gray under a cloud, the darkness swept up deeper and thicker, the light of the fire waned, but the boy still leaned against the log, and upon his sensitive mind every change of the wilderness was registered as upon the delicate surface of a plate. He glanced at his sleeping comrades and smiled. The smile was the index to an unconscious feeling of superiority. Ross and Sol were two or three times his age, but they slept while he watched, and not Ross himself in all his years in the wilderness had learned many things that came to him by intuition.
Hours passed and the boy was yet awake. New feelings, vague and undetermined came into his mind but through them all went the feeling of mastery. He, though a boy, was in many respects the chief, and while he need not assert his leadership yet a while, he could never doubt its possession.
The light died far down and only a few smoldering coals were left. The blackness of the night, coming ever closer and closer, hovered over his companions and hid their faces from him. The great trunks of the trees grew shadowy and dim. Out of the darkness came a sound slight but not in harmony with the ordinary noises of the forest. His acute senses, the old inherited primitive instinct, noticed at once the jarring note. He moved ever so little but an extraordinary change came over his face. The idle look of luxury and basking warmth passed away and the eyes became alert, watchful, defiant. Every feature, every muscle was drawn, as if he were at the utmost tension. Almost unconsciously his figure sank down farther against the log, until it blended perfectly with the bark and the fallen leaves below. Only an eye of preternatural keenness could have separated the outline of the boy from the general scene.
For five minutes he lay and moved not a particle. Then the discordant note came again among the familiar sounds of the forest and he glanced at his comrades. They slept peacefully. His lip curled slightly, not with contempt but with that unconscious feeling of superiority; they would not have noticed, even had they been awake.
His hands moved forward and grasped his rifle. Then he began to slip away from the opening and into the forest, not by walking nor altogether by crawling, but by a curious, noiseless, gliding motion, almost like that of a serpent. Always he clung to the shadows where his shifting body still blended with the dark, and as he advanced other primitive instincts blazed up in him. He was a hunter pursuing for the first time the highest and most dangerous game of all game and the thrill through his veins was so keen that he shivered slightly. His chin was projected, and his eyes were two red spots in the night. All the while his comrades by the fire, even the trained foresters, slumbered in peace, no warning whatever coming to their heavy heads.
The boy reached the wall of the woods, and now his form was completely swallowed up in the blackness there. He lay a while in the bushes, motionless, all his senses alert, and for the third time the jarring note came to his ears. The maker of it was on his right, and, as he judged, perhaps a couple of hundred yards away. He would proceed at once to that point. It is truth to say that no thought of danger entered his mind; the thrills of the present and its chances absorbed him. It seemed natural that he should do this thing, he was merely resuming an old labor, discontinued for a time.
He raised his head slightly, but even his keen eyes could see nothing in the forest save trunks and branches, ghostly and shapeless, and the regular rustle of the wind was not broken now by the jarring note. But the darkness heavy and ominous, was permeated with the signs of things about to happen, and heavy with danger, a danger, however, that brought no fear to Henry for himself, only for others. A faint sighing note as of a distant bird came on the wind, and pausing, he listened intently. He knew that it was not a bird, that sound was made by human lips, and once more a light shiver passed over his frame; it was a signal, concerning his comrades and himself, and he would turn aside the danger from those old friends of his who slept by the fire, in peace and unknowing.
He resumed his cautious passage through the undergrowth, and, the inherited instinct blossoming so suddenly into full flower, was still his guide. Not a sound marked his advance, the forest fell silently behind him, and he went on with unerring knowledge to the spot from which the discordant sounds had come.
He approached another opening among the trees, like unto that in which his comrades slept, and now, lying close in the undergrowth, he looked for the first time upon the sight which so often boded ill to his kind. The warriors were in a group, some sitting others standing, and though there was no fire and the moonlight was slight he could mark the primitive brutality of their features, the nature of the animal that fought at all times for life showing in their eyes. They were hard, harsh and repellent in every aspect, but the boy felt for a moment a singular attraction, there was even a distant feeling of kinship as if he, too, could live this life